Ralph Vacchiano
NFL reporter
Cam Ward has been the selection No. 1 obvia in the NFL 2025 draft for months, and Tennessee’s Titans never hesitated. They desperately needed a franchise field marshal. And the teams that need one do not pass them.
But that does not mean that Ward is the best Draft player or even the one who will have the greatest impact. In fact, it is very possible that better The player could end up playing on the other side of the ball.
Just ask Abdul Carter, who was selected third in general by New York giants on Thursday night. Back in the NFL Scouting Combine in February, he declared “the best player in the country”, adding that “the best player should be selected no.”
And throughout the process prior to the draft, Oye continued to make a good point on why.
“Those great defensive players, you look in history, can affect the game as much as a field marshal,” said Penn State on his professional day a few weeks later. “There are defensive leg players who have tasks about a game, just at the end of a Super Bowl. The big ones also make people around them better.
“So I want to say that, seeing how defensive players can take care of a game, we are like a quarterback.”
That, of course, is the bet that the giants made in the first round. Despite not having a quartback of the future on his list and knowing that co -owner John Mara called to find one “problem No. 1” of the low season, they approved (at least for now) in the possible Sanders Sass franchise as coloring color. Instead, they bowed to a franchise defender.
It was a risky choice, no doubt, but barely crazy. In an era dominated by high -octane passes games, teams need some who can also stop those pins.
“You have to pass the ball and you have to interrupt the pin,” said a general manager of the NFL to Fox Sports. “In essence, football today is really so simple. And if you can’t do both, it is almost impossible to win. Obviously, having the right pin is the most important part of that equation. But the guy who can differ the hip.”
“Everyone saw the Super Bowl, right?” The general manager of the giants, Joe Schoen, said recently. “Philly ran with how many? Four, the whole game, that is a way of doing it.”
Shoe was answering a question about whether a team could have too many passes runners, to which the obvious answer is a resounding. He just added to Carter, who had 12 catches and 23.5 Cocled for loss by the lions Nittany Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns Burns, A A A A A AA An5s Burns Burs, A A A5 Sacks Sacks Last Last season and 54.5 In his year Sex six. Thibodeaux (5.5 captures last season, 11.5 the previous year) and the defensive Tackle All-Pro Dexter Lawrence (9 captures last year).
Of course, giants refer to a very large need of 3-14 season. But what opposite field marshal will feel comfortable this season looking at that defensive line?
What imagines is what everyone saw in the 40-22 victory of the Philadelphia Eagles over the Kansas City Chiefs in February at the Super Bowl Lix. The Eagles, led by defensive rulers Josh Sweat (2.5 captures) and Milton Williams (2) fired the Kansas City Marshal, Patrick Mahomes, six times and hit him 11 times, or almost 30 percent of the time he spent again.
The Chiefs and Mohomes were beaten so far from their game, they were in a 34-0 hole before they finally scored with less than a remaining minute in the third quarter.
“Look what the Eagles did in the Super Bowl,” said an NFC team explorer. “Yes, it was a burst. But it wasn’t hurt and Saquon Barkley dominated the Chiefs. They were the four Eagles strikers, absolutely terrifying Patrick Mohamses. It could be his breath until the game left.
“I don’t care that Hurts was the MVP. I know it’s crazy to say it, and it’s just a game, but what was more valuable in that Super Bowl: an elite field marshal or elite pass race? The pass is a point of essence. Championship team.”
No one needed to remember that. The franchise still remembers with love in its days of being able to send Michael Strahan, Osi Umemeiora, Justin Tuck, Mathias Kiwanuka and even a Dave Tollefson fighter in opposite field marshal. And once Strahan retired, they selected Jason Pierre-Paul for Jin the fun.
Eli Manning, the best field marshal in the history of its franchise, can one day enter the football hall with the strength of the two Super Bowl championships that the giants who won their career won. But that passenger career was equally response to get those trophies like him.
And Carter is far from being a dangerous passes corridor. He is an impact defender who draws comparisons with the Cowboys star, Micah Parsons, for more than the fact that they did not use no. 11 in Penn State. Like Parsons, whom the giants transmitted in the 2021 draft, Carter is intelligent, fast, explosive and loaded with movements and strength. He has the speed to go to non -subsidiary or reach the field marshal in an instant.
And playing in a line where double dye could be almost impossible? Does anyone want him to be against him the defensive rookie of the NFL year?
“I can play multiple positions,” Carter said. “And I feel that, most importantly, I take a step forward when I need it more when the moment of crispy comes. When you need someone to make that great play, I feel that I am the guy who makes that great play.
“At the end of the day, I do better people around me, just taking them to double teams that give me more attention, freeing someone else so they can make the game and only my general impact on the game.”
That “general impact” could be huge, just even if it is not a field marshal. As the general manager of Detroit Lions, Brad Holmes, said on the edge corridors in the Combine: “Those guys are difficult to find. That is why it is called a premium position.”
Is it the most important position? Probably not. It is difficult to argue against being the field marshal.
But a “Premium” defender, especially a passes corridor, is very close.
“Yes, I feel that you definitely need an edge corridor of the franchise,” Carter said in the combination. “If you look at all the great teams, all the great teams that won Super Bowls, you have that outstanding and prominent defensive player.
“I feel that I am.”
Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL reporter for Fox Sports. He spent the last six years covering the giants and Jet For SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years they cover the giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow it on Twitter in @Ralphvacchiano.
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